“Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers… that smell bad”

So, the pope says that people who believe in “absolute truth” are fundamentalists, and that’s evil…but that’s a statement of an absolute truth… so it must be evil and fundamentalist to say that believing in absolute truth is evil and fundamentalist because it is a statement of absolute truth, but there is no such thing as absolute truth but that is a statement of …

I think a summary could be made: “Catholic fundamentalists – those wackos in mantillas squeezing their beads and singing in Latin are godless heathens and the same as Islamic fundamentalists cutting people’s heads off; condoms are OK but not really as big a problem as war and climate change.

About the authorHilary White

Hilary White is an Anglo-Canadian, who started researching, writing and lobbying in the political end of the pro-life movement in 1999, moved to Rome in 2008 and covered Vatican and European news related to "life and family issues" from a Catholic perspective until May 2015. She lived for two blessed years with her three cats and garden in the Peaceable Kingdom of Norcia, in Umbria, until the terrible day when the world fell down. Now transferred to a farm house near Perugia, with a bit of land and a large tomato patch, she continues to chant Vespers in Latin every day, and refuses to go to Rome for any reason whatsoever.
She hopes the world does not end before she can get the last of the tomatoes in.

At the risk of making myself look as if I’m defending the Pope, I want to point out that I went to the Vatican website and looked up the (Italian) account of his answer. My Italian is not excellent, but it seems to me that he said that there are many Catholics who believe they possess absolute truth but go on calumniating, defaming, and they (those “fundamentalists”) do injury.

Now that may be a distinction without a difference, but I want to point out a couple of things. First, why are there so many translation errors under Francis? Whose purpose do those “errors” serve? In some cases, it’s the staff of the press office (I believe) who screw up the translation, and I have to wonder if they all suddenly became stupid; in others, it’s news agencies. I’ve heard excuses that the Pope’s Italian is not “standard” but is the Italian he learned from his parents who emigrated to Argentina from a particular region of Italy. However, if *I* can understand it, why can’t they? Again, whose purpose does it serve to screw up the translations so often, and always skewed against orthodoxy?

Second, why does this Pope *always* and I mean pretty much always, answer critiques about other religions or customs by smearing Catholicism? When asked about *terrorist attacks* he brings up so-called fundamentalists in Catholicism, as if the two were anywhere near being parallel. It seems he never misses an opportunity to slam Catholics (unless they’re poor, of course; the poor must all have had immaculate conceptions because according to Francis, not only are they more noble because they’re poor, we should venerate them). Each time, he fails to condemn anyone but his own sheep. And I’m really tired of it. I’m pretty damn sick of it.

He and the offshoots of theosophy agree. People have a right to believe what they want because no one has the truth. Anyone who believes he has the truth and tries to convert others is an enemy of peace and must be eliminated for the good of the future. This is why interfaith worship is good.

Per C.S. Lewis, common sense, and the smarty-pants pagan Greek philosophers and smart dudes:
Either Pope Francis is right, which means the Church has been wrong for the 2,000 years preceding his pontificate, making Our Lord a liar, and therefore not God;
or
Our Lord was speaking the truth, Scripture is true and Pope Francis speaks heresy and apparently reeeely hates faithful Catholics’ guts and the Faith.
Folks,
Choose one.
There are no other options.
And defend the choice.
There are no others now.

Will someone in the hierarchy PLEASE openly entertain the possibility that Francis is not Pope!!! Benedict still lives in the Vatican, wears the papal whites, has his papal coat-of-arms, is addressed as His Holiness, etc., which sure looks like he hasn’t really resigned. (What resigning pope of the past had ever maintained this arrangement after he resigned?) There can’t be two popes at the same time!

Capt. Kirk: You’re wrong! Jackson Roykirk, your creator, is dead. You have mistaken me for him. You are in error! You did not discovered your mistake; you have made two errors. You are flawed and imperfect, and you have not corrected by sterilization; you’re made three errors!

Nomad: [starting to have a meltdown over this] Error? Error? Error? Examine.

The man in white seems to belong to the White Queen’s school of philosophy “Anything I say three times is true”. Except, of course, that he won’t say it three times as we might then be able to call it teaching. I loved the “because it’s my Church”. So now he thinks he’s God. Happy days! A delusional megalomaniac is in charge of the one, true, holy, and Apostolic Church. Like Hilary said elsewhere ‘Sauron got hold of the Ring’. If you’re not already praying like there’s no tomorrow (for there might not be) start now. Get a recording of the Rosary in Latin. Put it on your iPod, phone or car stereo. Play it and pray along with it without ceasing. Above all go to Mass and Adoration as often as is humanly possible. If the church is closed adore Him from outside. He’s in there waiting for you.